Thames & Kosmos - "Exit The Game: The Forgotten Island"

Updated: May 2

Photo above is property of Thames & Kosmos

Company: Thames & Kosmos

Game: The Forgotten Island

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Puzzles By Mail 📬

Genre: Adventure

Date Played: December 18, 2021

Difficulty (based on 4 players): 6/10

Size of Team: 1-4 Players (Ages 12+)

Time: (Suggested 1-2 Hours)

Price: $14.95

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A relaxing sea trip suddenly takes a turn for the worst as you become shipwrecked on some forgotten island. As you take a look around, you find your ticket to leaving this island, a boat. Upon further investigation, you find it locked up as well as a bunch of other items around the island. Looks like the only way off the island is solving the puzzles to open all the locks and free the boat.

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Opening the box, you will find the typical items in an “Exit The Game” game, which is the game instructions, the solution wheel, the game book, and a deck of cards that can be split into 3 decks, Riddles, Hints and Solutions. In addition, you will find 4 cards with cut out in them and some sort of ruler.

Photos above are property of Thames & Kosmos

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If you are not familiar with how Exit games are played, each puzzle will correspond to a symbol whether it be a star, circle, moon, etc. When you solve the puzzle, you should get three numbers (or colors in this game). Using the solution wheel, match up the symbol and the three numbers or colors and it will reveal a number in the middle. Take that card in the solutions deck. If you are correct, it will tell you which "Riddle cards" to reveal next.

The story to this game had a nice pirate theme laced into the background. Using common pirate items such as a map, journal and compass, the game integrated the puzzles and story together quite well as you learned a little more about the previous inhabitants of the island.

Exit games are meant to be destroyed and this one we found needed to be destroyed a little more than normal which for some, could be satisfying to do. On the other hand, there was really no way to salvage anything on the fly for some puzzles unless certain pages or cards were photocopied beforehand. We also did find it easier to play the game as we could rip pages out of the game book so everyone could have a look at things as the game progressed.

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The rating for this game was 3/5 difficulty but we still found it to be a little tricky. A bulk of the puzzles required matching up the correct pieces of information with one another or properly reading into the flavor text. The game also seemed to have a lot more reading than most of their other games, which gave a little more backstory if that is what you like. The puzzles we did solve with no hints or minimal hints were gratifying ones to get.

We did have trouble with 2 puzzles though that required us to take the solution after going through all the hints. One we felt could have been clued a little better while another one we still are not completely sure how it was solved, even after looking online for tips.

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It always surprises us how creative Thames & Kosmos can be with their puzzles with so little to work with in the box. There were 4 of us playing through the game, which took us just under 2 hours to complete. Outside of a few hiccups, the game overall was satisfying to play. It played on the theme well with the story and puzzles and there was enough to go around to have everyone included. If "Exit The Games" are what you crave and you have a little experience in them, this is a good choice to pick up.

Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of the game: